2008-02-08

Terrorism is currently seen as an imminent threat to Europe and thus also Austria. The possibility of terrorist attacks is widely used in political context to push privacy and civil right reductions.

I thought about that argument and looked up traffic deaths. According to the official source, the Statistik Austria, in 2006 (latest available numbers) 730 people died due to traffic accidents. Compared to 0 terrorism deaths (I could not find any statistics, but am quite sure, I wouldn't have missed a terror attack).

So I claim, that there doesn't exist any measure on terrorism attacks, thus the effectiveness of counter-measures against such cannot be proved.

Okay, I do not want to say that there does not exist any threat. But I first do want to say, that there are other more important problems and threats to life and that terrorism threats are gaining too much attention and people argue as if we would face daily bombing attacks, worse than in Baghdad.

Second, I think terrorism has to be fought on a very different level, a much earlier stage than surveillance of suspects. One would have to avoid that people even want to make terrorist attacks, so prevent their grief and anger.

So what are the reasons for terrorist attacks? You just read one. How to dissolve them? I propose:

Not fighting causeless prevention wars

Help those in need in war-troubled reasons - eg: sending aid to Iraq, if necessary with some publicity

Repeatedly and officially (by government) opposing and criticizing unjust behavior such as the US attack on Iraq and the situation in Guantanamo

Sending objective watchdogs to war regions and announce their reports

Work closely with immigrants and others that may have emotional bindings to conflicts in the world and provide an open forum for exchange how to improve the situation

This behavior would be much more effective than sending troops supporting illegal wars. If somebody would invade and occupy Austria on such a reasoning basis like the US did, I would fight them and their supporters too.